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Mexico has had a long history of resilient agricultural systems and food cultures that reflect the country’s agrobiodiversity. With GEF funding, FAO and CONABIO are reviving traditional practices to support the resilience of farmers’ livelihoods and meet the population’s nutritional needs

The sad case of the Norfolk Island morepork shows we need a way to control or eradicate invasive rodents without killing native species. When pest rats and mice decimate populations of native species, pest control is a no-brainer. But what if baiting rats protects threatened songbirds, while poisoning critically endangered owls?

This is a question conservation managers are grappling with on tiny Norfolk Island, some 1,300 kilometres off the east coast of Australia. They’re not the only ones troubled by such conflicting priorities.

Rodents are implicated in the decline of at least 400 threatened species and 30% of bird, mammal and reptile extinctions worldwide. Unfortunately, the most effective rat baits can also kill birds of prey.

Our new research shows the critically endangered Norfolk Island morepork is eating even more rats and mice than previously thought. These birds of prey are being poisoned in the process. We clearly need a way to control or eradicate rodents without killing our native species.

The China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA) and the San Diego Zoo in the United States recently signed a giant panda conservation agreement, with a pair of giant pandas selected for a 10-year international conservation cooperation project.

To protect the well-being of giant pandas in the U.S., experts from CWCA visited the San Diego Zoo in March for in-depth discussions and technical exchanges on panda care, living conditions and health requirements.

Targeted culling of crown-of-thorns starfish has resulted in parts of the Great Barrier Reef maintaining and even increasing coral cover, leading researchers to call for the programme to be dramatically scaled up

Neil Ward tells us about the role that genomics can play in conserving biodiversity and how innovative technologies such as HiFi sequencing are helping biodiversity projects.

We have been given the green light for our new scan tracking leukocyte infiltration of the brain. We can now run the first-ever patient! I wanted to share the exciting news - Jarred Younger.

Jarred Younger's research uses new techniques to study the brain inflammation present in MECFS. If he finds leucocytes in the brains of pwMECFS that would mean they had crossed the brain blood barrier.

Abstract: Since 1969, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) has been classified as a neurological disease in the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization. Although numerous studies over time have uncovered organic abnormalities in patients with ME/CFS, and the majority of researchers to date classify the disease as organic, many physicians still believe that ME/CFS is a psychosomatic illness. In this article, we show how detrimental this belief is to the care and well-being of affected patients and, as a consequence, how important the education of physicians and the public is to stop misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and stigmatization on the grounds of incorrect psychosomatic attributions about the etiology and clinical course of ME/CFS.

Proper biodiversity conservation requires long-term commitments to protect areas of land and water, as laid down in international guidelines.

The Nature Trust of BC is making its final push to purchase a parcel of land near Prince George.The Ferguson Lake Wetlands is a 129.2-hectare area of wetland, riparian forest, and mixed forest ecosystems.

The parcel is adjacent to the 31-hectare Ferguson Lake Conservation Area, which the Nature Trust already owns. .

“These wetland and riparian ecosystems are powerful carbon sinks that provide nature-based solutions to climate change,” said Nature Trust CEO Dr. Jasper Lament.

Wanjira has also been working with the county government and the national government in river clean-ups in an initiative dubbed Adopt-a-river, in collaboration with UNEP.

WASHINGTON, April 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today released a draft legislative proposal to address the Long COVID crisis that is negatively impacting the health of some 22 million Americans.

Before formally introducing this legislation in the Senate, the HELP Committee wants to hear from the Long COVID community to get their views on how this proposal can be improved and strengthened to effectively deal with this public health emergency. The committee is particularly interested in hearing from Long COVID patients and their families, scientific researchers, and medical professionals.

The public input on the proposal will help inform the legislation that Chair Sanders introduces.

Precis (full article in link): Introduction: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) presents substantial challenges in patient care due to its intricate multisystem nature, comorbidities, and global prevalence. The heterogeneity among patient populations, coupled with the absence of FDA-approved diagnostics and therapeutics, further complicates research into disease etiology and patient managment. Integrating longitudinal multi-omics data with clinical, health,textual, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical data offers a promising avenue to address these complexities, aiding in the identification of underlying causes and providing insights into effective therapeutics and diagnostic strategies.

Methods: This study focused on an exceptionally severe ME/CFS patient with hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD) during a period of marginal symptom improvements. Longitudinal cytokine profiling was conducted alongside the collection of extensive multi-modal health data to explore the dynamic nature of symptoms, severity, triggers, and modifying factors. Additionally, an updated severity assessment platform and two applications, ME-CFSTrackerApp and LexiTime, were introduced to facilitate real-time symptom tracking and enhance patient-physician/researcher communication, and evaluate response to medical intervention.

Results: Longitudinal cytokine profiling revealed the significance of Th2-type cytokines and highlighted synergistic activities between mast cells and eosinophils, skewing Th1 toward Th2 immune responses in ME/CFS pathogenesis, particularly in cognitive impairment and sensorial intolerance. This suggests a potentially shared underlying mechanism with major ME/CFS comorbidities such as HSD, Mast cell activation syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and small fiber neuropathy. Additionally, the data identified potential roles of BCL6 and TP53 pathways in ME/CFS etiology and emphasized the importance of investigating adverse reactions to medication and supplements and drug interactions in ME/CFS severity and progression.

Discussion: Our study advocates for the integration of longitudinal multi-omics with multi-modal health data and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to better understand ME/CFS and its major comorbidities. These findings highlight the significance of dysregulated Th2-type cytokines in patient stratification and precision medicine strategies. Additionally, our results suggest exploring the use of low-dose drugs with partial agonist activity as a potential avenue for ME/CFS treatment. This comprehensive approach emphasizes the importance of adopting a patient-centered care approach to improve ME/CFS healthcare management, disease severity assessment, and personalized medicine. Overall, these findings contribute to our understanding of ME/CFS and offer avenues for future research and clinical practice.